Write On! New digital device links pen and paper to computers, PDAs and cell phones New York Daily News ,  April 7, 2002 By MICHELLE MEGNA he makers of two new high-tech pens are hoping they have the right stuff. If all goes well, people will abandon keypads, keyboards and styluses for these electronic writing instruments that instantly transform your handwritten notes to cell-phone, laptop and hand-held screens. When the first ballpoint pen went on sale in 1945 for $12.50 at Gimbel's Department Store in New York City, thousands of people lined up to buy one. Called the Reynolds Rocket, $100,000 worth sold the first day. The ballpoint pen was considered a cool new gadget because it could hold its own ink. Transferring Text A lot has changed since then in terms of how we get text and drawings from one place to another. The problem is that most input devices for electronics, especially mobile ones, are awkward to use. InkLink from Seiko Instruments and the VPen from OTM Technologies are both designed to give people an easier way to input information to hand-helds, cell phones and computers. InkLink (www.seikosmart.com ; $99.95), which goes on sale at the end of the month, can convert handwritten notes and drawings into an electronic format so you can instantly transfer notes from paper to your device. The package includes an electronic ballpoint pen that runs on watch batteries, an infrared transceiver and a "data clip," which looks like it would be used to clamp an open bag of chips shut. As you write with the InkLink pen, notes and drawings are transferred into a PDA through the IrDA (infrared) transceiver, or into a laptop or PC connected through a USB cable. InkLink's proprietary software, InkNote Manager, allows you to cut, copy, paste, e-mail and store handwritten notes in digital form. InkLink can be used with any size paper up to legal size and supports Palm, Pocket PC and Windows operating systems. To use InkLink with a hand-held organizer, you attach the IrDA clip over the PDA's infrared port, then plug the cable's mini USB cord into the InkLink data clip. Then, the data clip is fastened to the edge of a piece of paper. Each stroke of the pen is captured and immediately transferred into the PDA. Users can copy their notes into their desktop PC using the ActiveSync or the HotSync process. To accommodate computers, InkLink is equipped with a USB cable that you plug into the PC's USB port while the other end plugs into the data clip. The value in using InkLink is that the software lets you view, archive, edit and export files to hand-held and computer applications. You can organize your files by date, category name and keyword, and view thumbnails. It's also easy to edit, cut, copy, paste, highlight and draw straight lines. InkNote Manager automatically saves files as the proprietary vector .ink format, but allows you to export them as the more popular .bmp and .jpg formats. Reading the Small Print Clearly, mobile professionals, those who use sketches and diagrams in their business and the typing-challenged will be more apt to smack down a Benjamin for InkLink than those who just want to read Zagat's on the go and keep a digital contact list. In my test with a Palm i705, I found InkLink to work well. Setup was easy and the file manager software worked fine. The problem is that, at least on the i705, your doodling is too small on the screen. Of course, you can edit files on your PC later, but there's something about not being able to read what you write that's a bit unsettling. For example, on a regular pad of paper, I had to write letters four lines taller than usual to make them legible on the Palm's screen. You can tap once on the screen and zoom in to enlarge the view by 200%, or you can select 400% from the Tools menu, but it seems there should be a better way to view your files. The files looked fine when I tried them on an iPaq, which has a large, color screen. OTM Technologies is creating quite a buzz as Microsoft, Motorola and Siemens take interest in its prototype called VPen, a hybrid pen-mouse. The VPen looks like a regular pen with more girth, but it contains a sensor at its tip and converts the pen's motions into text characters, which are then transmitted via a Bluetooth link or a wire to a digital device. It is expected to hit the market by the end of the year. The plan is to partner with manufacturers who will produce, market and distribute the device. For instance, cell-phone companies, realizing they can expand the popular text-messaging market if people no longer have to punch out text messages on tiny phone pads, are taking note. Even with the clumsy interface, Americans are sending between 300 million and 350 million text messages a month on their mobile phones with an estimated 30 billion per month being exchanged in Europe. "The VPen paves the way for more user-friendly interaction," says Mike Robinson, a vice president in the accessories division at Motorola. "This enables consumers to write text messages and gives them greater freedom on the go."